


The Super-Girl from Krypton

by FlamingChemist



Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Retelling, Silver Age
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-12-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 18:21:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2591552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlamingChemist/pseuds/FlamingChemist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Supergirl first crashed into our lives in 1958, and she hasn't stopped making noise since. This work is a retelling of the tales of the first Supergirl, true to the original but more accessible to a modern audience.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. An Angel Falls to Midvale

As her rocket made contact with the Earth’s atmosphere Kara was both excited and terrified. She had spent long hours watching the world that was to be her new home in her father’s intergalactic telescope. It was on his projector screen that she first caught sight of the marvel called Superman.

The circumstances that led to a young girl falling through space into a life she could only imagine were both drastic and urgent. She had been born in the remnants of Argo City, on a large chunk of asteroid that was blown loose when the planet Krypton exploded. Her genius father was able to preserve the city, holding what little atmosphere it had in place and fabricating nutritious food from inedible substances. By the time his daughter was grown Krypton was nothing more than a story told by the few survivors.

It wasn’t until a meteor shower began pelting the small asteroid that the people of Argo began to think that their tenuous new lives might not last forever. When the remnants of Krypton passed the outer edge of the Rao system they became dangerously irradiated, changing from inert rock into the potent compound known as Kryptonite. The entire foundation of Argo was made of the stuff, distanced from the population by a thick layer of solid lead. Over the years repairs consumed the Kryptonians’ supply of lead until there wasn’t enough left to fill the craters left by meteorites plummeting into the city. Kryptonite was pulverized by impact and aerosolized, slowly but surely poisoning the air.

Kara knew better than to argue with her father when he decided that she was to seek refuge alone, the last of her planet on some strange new world. There wasn’t any time, he said, and a smaller ship would have a better chance of making the trip intact. He had made up his mind and she was left with no choice but to nod and try  not to notice when her parents held each other and cried. They would not be coming with her. They would stay on the oversized, radioactive rock that was slowly but surely being turned to deadly rubble. Sending her away would be their last act of love, and young Kara was not allowed any say in the matter.

Earth was the nearest planet her parents had been able to identify as habitable. It was no coincidence that it was also home to a man who claimed to be the last remaining Kryptonian. It seemed impossible. She had grown up hearing stories of Krypton’s destruction, and everyone believed that their small community held the only survivors. And yet as she watched through the telescope and deciphered the transmissions that could be sorted from the celestial noise she heard about Krypton again and again. He knew the stories her own parents had told her, spoke the language (though he did so only rarely), even conveyed some of the laws that she and her parents still lived by. She had to believe that he was from Krypton, and that if he could survive crash landing on the planet as an infant then she could do the same as a young woman. Otherwise she was utterly alone and probably dead.

In spite of her anxieties she had to trust her father’s judgment and her mother’s craftsmanship. The dress she had sewn for her daughter matched the clothes Superman wore, and unless their math was very, very wrong, should be virtually indestructible once she reached Earth. Still, she held her breath and closed her eyes as soon as the rocket seemed to heat up. Soon, she told herself, she would be the Earth’s brightest new star of hope. Superman was a heroic sensation in every city from which their instruments were able to pick up broadcasts. If they were right about his abilities then she would be able to do everything he could. She would go from being plain old Kara Zor-El, not quite so brilliant as her father nor quick as her mother, to being the amazing Super Woman from Krypton.

But first: the landing.

The planet’s gravity would cause her ship to accelerate and heat up to dangerous levels while the atmospheric drag tried to crush it under the opposing force of the air. She was still alive to think these things, which was probably a good sign – at least for now.  She clenched her jaw to keep from screaming. Any moment now she would—

\-- _crash._  She felt the front of the rocket fold in on itself. She let out the breath she was holding and opened her eyes. There was the rocket door in front of her. There were her hands, clenched in her lap as they had been moments ago. Everything seemed to be in one piece. Nothing hurt. Actually, it was surprising how little anything hurt. If it was true that Superman had gained his amazing powers due to the Earth’s lower gravity as the broadcasts had said then her ship should have been as invulnerable to damage as she was. But here she was, without so much as a scratch, and she could smell her ship letting off smoke.

She didn’t have time to think about it much more, because the rocket flooded with light as something tore the door of her rocket almost off its hinges. She blinked up at the face staring down at her, horror in his familiar eyes.

“Don’t worry Superman,” she assured him, her voice finding strength as she smiled to show him she was alright. She should have known that he would be the first on the scene. He did, after all, have incredible speed and hearing. He would no doubt have noticed her ship as soon as it entered the atmosphere.

“I’m alive. Without a scratch.” She sounded steadier than she felt. It didn’t make much more sense even after she said it aloud, but as she rose to climb out of the rocket she could see that it was true. She was unharmed.

“Great Scott,” he declared, a colloquialism that Kara had only been able to translate as an expression of surprise, “you’re alive? But… you’d have to be invulnerable, like me!” She almost laughed. She was as surprised as he was, but you didn’t see her thinking aloud. He hadn’t even noticed her outfit yet. This was the exciting part. Here was this man, this hero, this _super_ hero who thought he knew everything, and here she was, a young girl about to turn his world upside down. She knew it wasn’t nice to gloat, but she couldn’t resist the urge. It wasn’t every day she got to be the smartest person in the room, especially with parents like hers.

So she told her story as best she could, about the small neighborhood her father was able to preserve, the dangers of leftover radiation from the death of the planet, the day that meteors started falling. She got through the details of the short month between the shower and her launch, the things she had seen in her father’s telescope, everything she had learned about him and his new home. It was only as she told him about her final days with her parents that it finally hit her that they were really gone. She was an orphan now.

“I know it was heartbreaking, Kara,” Superman assured her, a look of mild panic in his eyes as she started rubbing tears from her cheeks. “I was orphaned from my parents the same way.” She gave him a questioning look. She really doubted he knew how she felt, but she was willing to listen. She supposed she wouldn’t know what to say to a recent orphan breaking down in front of her either. At least he was trying. That was what really mattered. 

“As a baby, I was also shot away in a space rocket. By my father, Jor-El.”

“Jor-El?” That was a name she knew, not from evesdropping on the planet Earth but from the conversations of her parents and neighbors. The coincidence was too much. Maybe Rao was smiling down at her after all. “My father’s name is _Zor_ -El. He’s your father’s brother!”

“Great Scott! That would make you my cousin!”

Until a moment ago they had both thought that they had no biological family left. Kara had hoped that she would find new family in this Kryptonian stranger, but for him to be her cousin? When she thought about it, it made a sort of sense. Jor-El and Zor-El were two of the greatest scientists that Krypton ever had. That the two last Kryptonians in the universe had survived the death of the planet and found their way safely to the same new planet in similar ships was too perfect to be a coincidence. Of course their fathers were brothers. They had probably worked on prototypes of the rockets together. Her father must not have known that his nephew had survived, or he surely would have told her. He would be so happy—

But he was dead now. He was gone and all she had was a cousin she had never met and a planet she had only seen through a telescope. Her eyes started to water again. When Superman opened his arms to her she hugged him tight and cried into his shirt.

“We may be orphans, but we have each other now. I’ll take care of you like a big brother, Kara.” He sounded so sincere that Kara believed him, and felt just a little bit less alone. She sniffled and pulled her dripping nose away from his chest.

“Thanks, Superman. You mean I’ll come and live with you?”

“Hmm… no, that wouldn’t work.”

She pulled away from him entirely, staring at him in disbelief. Her brand new cousin was abandoning her already. So much for being like brother and sister.

“You see,” he explained as Kara reminded herself that he had no reason to trust her, “I’ve adopted a secret identity on Earth which might be jeopardized.” The excuse was weak at best. Kara wiped her face dry. He was only a man, after all. He wouldn’t want a young girl running around all the time. She only knew a little about the culture of this planet, but she hadn’t seen many adult men with young female cousins following them around. It was probably some sort of faux-pas. So then where would she live? How would she feed herself or learn the customs of this strange new place?

“But I have a great idea for your future! First, let’s see if you can fly.” She took a deep, steadying breath. She did need to explore the new powers she should have from being on Earth. If Superman could do it, she ought to be able to do it too. But she wouldn’t know unless she tried. She thought flighty thoughts and jumped from the balls of her feet, even though she knew it couldn’t be that easy.

Her body just kept going up.

“I… I can!” The feeling of weightlessness distracted her briefly from her worries. She could _fly_. What did it matter where she would be staying? “I have superpowers just like you do, cousin!” She knew she was gloating, but she didn’t care. Superman’s grin mirrored her own as he followed her into the air and sped to take the lead. She didn’t bother asking where they were going.

“I just wanted to make sure. In my youth in Smallville I was honored as Super-Boy. You can be famous too, as Super-Girl: the Girl of Steel!” Not quite the mature moniker she had been hoping for, but it did roll off the tongue.

“This is so exciting. Can I start right now?” If flying was this much fun  the heroics she had seen Superman performing could only be even better than she had imagined. They both landed at Superman’s signal.

“No, Kara. You’ll need long practice before you can use your superpowers properly.” His tone was patronizing. “Meanwhile this orphanage will be your home.”

He really knew how to ruin her good mood. He was probably right that she would need practice, she told herself tiredly. She may not like it, but he had been here longer than she had, and he was her elder. Surely he would know best. She turned to eye the building he had indicated. It was small and a little run-down, but many of the buildings in Argo had been the same. The sign read “Midvale Orphanage” in plain and faded letters. Orphanages didn’t have the same negative connotation for her as they did for your typical Earth-born child. It was passable.

“You’ll need a secret identity too, of course! Wait here and I’ll bring back some Earth clothes for you. And I have an idea how to disguise you perfectly!”

He flew off before she could protest. So she needed a secret identity, apparently. And that meant a disguise. He would explain it all to her later, she was sure. Maybe he Had other things on his mind. She moved behind a tree, so that she wasn’t in clear sight of the orphanage. If Superman was going to disguise her it would probably be helpful if they didn’t have an audience. She would think of it as a game. She had to play by the rules even if she didn’t understand them.

When he returned he held a change of clothes and a brown wig styled in pigtails. She could see from a close inspection (another of her new powers seemed to be microscopic vision) that it was authentic mammalian hair. She wasn’t sure why she needed a wig, but she had to trust Superman’s judgment. He seemed to think it would be convincing.

“While you were gone I listened for some Earth girls’ names,” she told him while he helped her adjust the new clothes over her old ones. Apparently that was an important part of a secret identity – the ability to change quickly. She didn’t ask.

“I thought of a good one for myself. ‘Linda Lee’. How’s that?” She smiled up at him, pleased with herself for being some use in what was otherwise a total mystery to her. He had a lost look on his face, far from the approval she had been looking for.

“That’s… as good as any,” he offered distractedly. She was starting to think that she was the distraction. He had seemed inattentive and distant since she was halfway through her story. In the absence of her mother’s good advice she shrank into herself, playing the lost little girl that she really was as Superman led her inside the orphanage to introduce her to the man in charge. He in turn introduced her to the headmistress, who spoke immediately of getting her settled in. She felt like she was being swept away to her new life, or more poignantly, away from her old life. She turned to Superman almost desperate with the hope that he would change his mind, take her in, show her how to survive in this strange new world.

He looked as absent as ever.

“I guess it’s time to say goodbye… Superman.” She narrowly stopped herself from calling him ‘cousin’.  It didn’t feel very much like he was family.

He pulled her aside when he remembered her presence, and they had a moment of privacy. Some kind words of comfort perhaps, advice for everything that was yet to come.

“Someday the outside world will hear of you as Supergirl. But for a long time to come you’ll live here quietly as an ordinary girl until you get used to the culture.” It made sense when he put it that way. She still needed to learn about this world and how she would fit in to it. Playing hero was a secondary priority, exciting though it seemed, and for that she would also need practice. It would be some time before she was able to debut as a competent, approachable superhero. She didn’t like the sound of debuting as anything else.

“I understand, cousin,” she agreed at last. “I’ll keep my presence on Earth a complete secret from everyone for the time being.”

Satisfied with her vow of secrecy, he left her.

It was strange that things started to feel more normal once he left. All of the extraordinary events of the morning and her flight from the wreckage of Krypton seemed like they were a lifetime away when compared to Headmistress Hart’s quick tour of the Midvale Orphanage. There would be food here, medicine when needed and trips outside for anything that couldn’t be obtained at the orphanage itself. Then there were the customers, couples who came in looking for the perfect child to adopt. From everyone’s attitudes she imagined this process didn’t often go as hoped.

The tour finally ended at the room that was to be hers. The place was a mess. The bed was supported by a flimsy metal frame that was bent out of shape, the mattress from stiff metal springs. Everything was covered in dust and dirt and Gods knew what else. She thanked Miss Hart for her help but insisted that she could clean things up on her own. She had a better idea for how to spend her evening.

She had spent the last month planning for her new life as Supergirl. It was the only thing that distracted her from the prospect of leaving her family. Superman was right that she would need practice, but how was she supposed to get practice unless by using her powers? So she focused her attention on the problems posed by her new room.

The bedframe was made from sturdy but cheap metal that would probably break before it bent. To fix it she tried bringing a little bit of heat to her hands by rubbing them together as fast as she could, then carefully bending the legs back into shape. It took finesse, but she managed to straighten every bent bar. For pieces that had been rusted or broken over the years she could use laser vision to sauter the edges back together. Given time to cool the frame would be good as new within hours. She stood back and admired her work. She would be ready for the real world in no time.

Dust was a more difficult problem. It covered every surface, in some places so thick that she couldn’t tell what color the wood was meant to be underneath. She opened the lone window in her room. If she could blow everything in the room lighter than a book out the window, only the furniture would be left. She gathered the pillows and blankets in her arms and stood at the door. A careful breath turned into a confident exhale, pulling dust from dressers and into the air. A stronger breath and the thick particles flew through the window and out into the yard. The end result was a lovely fresh smell in the room, and furniture that looked younger by years.

Next she turned on the broken mirror that stood over the armoire. The material was familiar to her, and she knew that careful heating would make the glass that covered it melt into a liquid. She took the frame down from the wall and laid it flat, so that as the glass settled it would create an even surface. Focusing at the glass, she adjusted the radiation level and intensity of her look until the material began to liquefy. Her vision powers would take the most practice, it seemed. She cooled the mirror to a safe temperature with her icy breath.

After her room was tidied there was only one more power she had wanted to try out. She could hear the other orphans playing in the game room outside.  It sounded like a girl and a boy, talking together but doing different activities. She stared at the wall where the sound seemed to be coming from and let her focus shift and shift until finally, like magic, she could see them both clearly.  A girl was playing with dolls, a boy with pens and a drawing pad. They were talking about strategies for something. She didn’t really want to eavesdrop, so she didn’t try to figure out what. It was nice just to know what she could do.

She was still sorting things through for herself when the headmistress called out.

“Lights out, children! Time for bed! Goodnight!” Kara – Linda, here- did as she was told. She turned out the light, shut the door, and took off her day clothes. But as she lay in bed staring at the ceiling of her new home she knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep. She was bursting with energy, and the longer she sat still the more she thought of her parents. She didn’t want to be a lonely orphan here on Earth. She wanted to be a guardian angel, like her cousin. She wanted to soar through the sky saving lives and solving problems as she went.

The heroics would have to wait, but she _could_ take to the skies over Midvale. She just had to do it in the dark of night, when nobody could see their quiet new champion.


	2. Krypto Makes a Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Krypto the Superdog meets the Girl of Steel.

Midvale was a quiet town, generally speaking. The orphanage was even quieter. There was very little in the way of modern entertainment as Kara was familiar with it. The flip side was that open space was abundant and beautiful in a way that she had never seen before. Argo had such limited space, confined as it was to a single small asteroid.

The orphanage’s playground was a popular place with the children, and that suited ‘Linda’ just fine. She picked up the games and hobbies of her peers by watching and listening, and though she gained a reputation for being quiet and a little odd she otherwise fit in.

She had been at the orphanage for more than a week now, ever since Superman found her and left her there. That was the last time she had seen her cousin. She wasn’t sure how he expected her to get practice with her superpowers without revealing her identity, but she was still determined to become every bit the hero Superman was, if not better.

That was why she didn’t hesitate when she saw a long dead tree tip dangerously in a strong wind. At the base of the tree a pair of young orphans picked flowers. There were a number of clovers growing there, the kind that the children liked to weave into circlets and wear in their hair. They didn’t seem to mind that the grass was wet from a recent storm, no more than they noticed the dried out roots of the old tree crack and finally start to pull out of the mud. But Kara saw it, and the moment she was out of sight of the other children on the playground she tore off the clothes and wig that disguised her as Linda Lee.

It made things difficult that she wasn’t allowed to be seen as Kara Zor-El, but it did challenge her imagination. She had some practice over the last week with keeping her presence hidden, and so it was easy to dig a tunnel barehanded into the earth, coming up under the tree and ensuring that it fell away from the children.

While she was underground the girls had noticed that the tree was about to fall, but they hadn’t had the time to get out of the way. Now they assumed that a second wind had blown the mass of dead wood in the other direction. The orphans, alarmed by their near miss, ran back inside the orphanage. With nobody nearby to see her, Kara climbed out of the ground and went to retrieve her disguise.

She was pleased with herself for her success, both because she had managed to perform her heroics without being discovered and because the children were unharmed. It was hard to say which mattered to her more, but that hardly seemed important when everything worked out fine. She took her time getting back to the bush where she had dropped her clothes.

She had hardly even begun to put the nice dress on over the one her mother had sewn for her when she heard a sound like a meteor crashing through the air. She dropped the clothes and turned to face the threat, only to find a white dog wearing a red cape to be the source of the sound. He looked to be flying towards Metropolis.

Kara knew the dog from the stories she had read about her Super cousin and his youth. This was Krypto, the superpowered dog that had been Superboy’s companion in his youth in Smallville.

“Krypto,” she called out before he could get too far away, “here boy! I’m Supergirl. I’m your master’s cousin!” Hearing his name the dog stopped in midair and turned to face the girl. He was startled to see what looked like his master Superman, but smaller and blonder. He landed nearby and trotted up to sniff at her. Kara smiled at the creature.

“I guess Superman never told you about me, hmm?” Whether the dog smelled Krypton on her or just liked the way the girl stooped to rub his head, he promptly began licking her face. She laughed, trying to get away from the wet tongue, but Krypto was able to fly to reach her face whatever way she turned it. She finally had to hold him off of her with super strength. Being super strong himself, the dog didn’t mind. He just wagged his tail and barked happily at her.

“Gee,” she crooned to him, “aren’t you a cute pup. You like me too, huh?” A thought occurred to her as she eyed the small mountain that stood a mile away from Midvale.

“Come on, Krypto! Let’s have a race!” She flew off, aimed directly at the base of the mountain, and Krypto followed her with an excited _yip!_ When she dug into the rock so did he, and with her x-ray vision it was as though they chased each other down a fully lit road. She was laughing when they burst out the other side of the mountain at the same time.

Her laughter stopped when she saw Superman standing several feet away, arms crossed, looking stern. He looked just like her father did when she had misbehaved. Krypto could see it too, and the both of them set their feet on the ground and waited meekly for their judgment.

“Supergirl. I was on patrol when I saw you.” His tone was every bit as scolding as his posture. “You’ve disobeyed my orders. You revealed your existence to Krypto.”

She had to gape at him. Surely she had heard him wrong. Or this was some sort of joke? But the serious expression never left his face. He really meant it.

“But cousin, Superman, he’s only a _dog_ ,” she insisted, bordering on panic. If he couldn’t trust her to follow his instructions he would never let her fight alongside him. “He can’t talk! He can’t tell anyone about me.”

“No, but like any frisky dog he could follow you to the orphanage and accidentally expose your identity.” She hadn’t thought of that. It would be bad, she supposed, if Krypto found her in Midvale and made off with her wig in the middle of a field trip or something.

“You must be taught a lesson for breaking my rule. Wait here, Supergirl.”

And she did, wondering miserably how her older cousin was going to punish her for her misstep. Krypto waited with her, whimpering and sniffing at her knees in an attempt to cheer her up. It was no use. Now she would have to wait even longer before making her presence on Earth known, becoming the superhero she knew she would be someday.

Superman finally returned with a strange test-tube shaped thing even bigger than Kara herself was. There was a handlebar in it, right before the curved end. Frankly it looked a little ridiculous. It didn’t look any less ridiculous after Superman explained that it was a transport rocket shell, specially designed so that it wouldn’t melt from friction as it left Earth’s atmosphere. The explanation in itself was alarming enough. He said it was so that Krypto wouldn’t follow her. She was to be exiled, alone, on an asteroid for one year.

It seemed like overkill. It was also very difficult to argue with the admittedly bulky Superman when he told her to hold on tight and tossed her up into space. By the time she had thought of an argument she was seconds away from crashing into the asteroid Superman had chosen for her grounding. And that’s what it was – she was grounded. For a _year._

She let go of the handlebar and let the shell crash into the asteroid without her. She could scope out her new home from the air, or lack thereof… only there _was_ air. For that matter, there was colorful plant life, and even a few animals. If she had to be stranded on an asteroid this was certainly the place to do it. For the first few days she could only marvel at the place. For the life of her she couldn’t figure out how a planetoid (which it had to be, because an asteroid couldn’t have an atmosphere) had developed this much life so far from any sun. It seemed like she discovered something new every day.

The strange and impossible environment could only hold her attention for so long before Kara began to feel sorry for herself. She really did want Superman to trust her. She had to trust that he would come to his senses and realize that this punishment was ludicrously harsh before she completely lost her nerve and simply flew back to Earth on her own. And beautiful though the planetoid was, she was always lonely. She hadn’t realized how fond she had become of the other orphans at Midvale in such a short time. She spent most of her days taking advantage of her superpowered sight to watch them as they played, went to classes, got adopted. When the planet turned so that she couldn’t see them anymore she watched children on other parts of the planet having all sorts of fun doing the things that she couldn’t do as long as she was stuck on this stupid planetoid.

She had been in exile a week when Krypto paid her an unexpected visit. Kara was so thrilled she almost didn’t notice the note he had tucked in his collar. It had to be from Superman, of course. Who else? Maybe he realized what an ass he’d been and was going to let her come back. No doubt he was too busy to come find her himself. Or else he just didn’t care. That seemed a more likely explanation.

She took the note from Krypto’s collar and read it, idly scratching the dog’s ears as she did.

 

_Dear Supergirl,_

_I detected a cloud of deadly kryptonite dust that will sweep among the asteroids for the next 24 hours. Return to the orphanage as Linda Lee for that one day, then resume your space exile. The danger will be over by then._

_Superman_

 

Any hope that her cousin was going to give her another chance faded as she finished reading the letter. He wanted her to continue her exile. It was completely ridiculous. Still, at least it would give her time to see her friends and say some manner of goodbye before she figured out what she was going to do about it. Find another planet, maybe, if Superman wasn’t going to behave like family.

Krypto followed her back to the woods outside the orphanage, where she had left her human clothes a week ago. While she put those on over her Kryptonian dress she listened to the woods around her. The sounds of a search party reached her ears, and she nearly slammed her head against a tree. They were talking about giving up the search for the poor orphan girl who had been lost for a whole week somewhere in these woods, so close to the orphanage. Had the thought even crossed Superman’s mind that his cousin might be missed? If he ever came back to Midvale she doubted he would avoid questioning. After all, he had brought her there himself.

She sighed, and got back to work on her disguise. Even if she was angry at him at the moment, she didn’t want to cause any trouble for her cousin later on. Once she figured out what she was doing she would make sure that it was clear to the orphanage that she had run away. Until then she just had to find a way to explain how she had wandered around the woods for a week without being found or killed.

The man in charge of the orphanage seemed happy enough to answer that question for her as she wandered into sight of the building, a dazed look on her face. He took one look at her muddy and disheveled self and declared to the search party that she must have been lost in the swamp nearby. It was hard for dogs to get a proper scent there, which would have made it hard to search.

She went with it, and managed to dodge question once reporters arrived to follow up on their “missing orphan” stories. Quiet as things were in Midvale it must have been the story of the year. She gave vague excuses for things, staring off into the distance from time to time as though she wasn’t quite recovered from her harrowing adventure.

Most of the reporters were satisfied with her weak story about taking a lunch with her on a long hike and hiding from animals up in trees. But one stayed after the rest of them had left. He had introduced himself earlier – his name was Clark Kent.

“Your whole story sounds fishy to me,” he told her. Now that he was the only one left she realized that there was something familiar about him.

“How did you keep clear of all the wild animals in the swamp? And mosquitoes swarm there. Let me look at your arm.” She knew she couldn’t explain being out in the woods for a whole week without getting any mosquito bites. But there didn’t seem to be any good reason to stop him when he grabbed at her arm. Instead of trying, she turned her heat vision on the reporter’s glasses. If she could makes cracks, pock marks, maybe even fog he would have no way of knowing that her skin was perfectly smooth.

It didn’t work. It didn’t seem to matter that she was perfectly capable of melting glass down to a liquid. His glasses were perfectly unscathed. They couldn’t have been made of glass then. But why would a human need glasses made of something even sturdier than glass? Her mind raced as the man talked through a series of almost logical steps, somehow coming to the conclusion that she must be an unknown Super Girl. She knew suddenly why he had seemed familiar.

“Do you deny it?” he demanded harshly.

“No, I don’t.” She kept her expression bland as she took off her wig and unbuttoned her dress to reveal the symbol under it. “I’m secretly Supergirl, the cousin of Superman.” It was hard not to smile when Clark jumped in surprise, but she managed it.

“Great Scott!” That was only further confirmation of her theory. She didn’t know anyone else who said ‘great scott’ so much. “You… you admit it? You’re not making any attempt to cover it up?”

She smiled blandly at him as he slumped, clearly disappointed. He barely even bothered to end the interview before turning to leave.

“Wait, Mr. Kent!” She called to him to stop him from leaving the room altogether. “I know something about you, too. You’re Superman.” Victory was clear in her voice. If nothing else she could use this as leverage. “That’s why I didn’t try to cover it up!”

Seeing that they were alone, Clark took his shirt off to reveal the suit that he too wore under his normal clothes. Apparently their relationship was to be strictly compartmentalized.

“How did you know?”

She explained to him what she had done to his glasses, trying not to sound too smug. He seemed genuinely startled that she could figure it out from something so small. She didn’t feel the need to point out to him that only a pair of glasses hid the face of her own cousin from her. He seemed so thrilled anyway that she didn’t want to ruin it. The two of them left the orphanage at super speed to find a place where they could talk in private. Nobody would come to find they had left for at least a few minutes.

“Now I can tell you the truth. I sent Krypto to you on purpose. It didn’t _really_ matter that you revealed your existence to my dog.” His tone was a little smug. She was glad to know he wasn’t completely insane, but it did still beg the question.

“But then why did you send me into space?”

“To keep you away from Earth for a week, so Linda Lee would be reported missing.” He seemed so pleased with himself for coming up with this plan. She had to wonder if it was really his.

“I wanted to see if you could protect your secret identity in the toughest situations. You passed your test with flying colors.” She perked up immediately.

“You mean my training period is over?”

“No, no, Supergirl! I have some very smart enemies. If I’m ever in a bad trap you’re the only one who could rescue me.”

Kara’s hopes fell again. She really didn’t see how it was in any way necessary that her existence be a secret. That a particularly clever criminal might set a trap for the both of them seemed like little more than an excuse for him to not have to deal with her for a while longer. She knew there were other superheroes on Earth who could certainly come help him if he needed it. Superman went on.

“And if I’m ever busy on some other job and a second emergency comes up at the same time, you can handle it for me. My Superman robots aren’t always dependable, since they can be affected by magnets and electricity.” Ah yes, the Superman robots. Truth be told they were useful little toys, even if they did seem silly. Still, it wasn’t a promising outlook.

“Then I can never be revealed to the world in advance,” she pointed out critically. Superman wasn’t even fazed. If anything he looked like he was purposefully ignoring her. She decided to let it slide for now. She was still getting a sense for her strange cousin. Maybe he did feel bad, and she just couldn’t see it in him.

“But if it wasn’t in preparation for my coming into the public eye, then why _did_ you test me?”

“Well, uh… I figured that if you could keep your own big secret, I could trust you with mine.” He looked embarrassed. She was pleased to note that his test hadn’t gone exactly as planned.

“You mean it all led up to telling me you were Clark Kent?”

“Well, yes. Only you, ah, found it out by yourself! Boy is my face red.”

They laughed and shook their heads at each other, and Krypto barked to point out that they hadn’t been paying him any attention at all and he was feeling very left out now, thank you very much.

Kara said her goodbyes and waved to her cousin as he and the dog flew off in the direction of Metropolis, feeling a little pleased despite herself. It had been an awful week, but at least she had gotten one up on Superman. She wouldn’t let him forget it. In a few weeks that might make all the difference in the world.


End file.
